Well, as the title says there was a negligent discharge at 3 Gun this past weekend. I won’t offer details about who, or where exactly, but on a pistol/rifle combined stage one of the competitors was holstering his pistol in a kneeling position and discharged the weapon through his holster and into his leg. The bullet passed through the holster and entered the backside of the man’s calf, missing bone, missing artery, missing vein and missing any major nerves so far as any of us know - to pass clean through, out the other side and into the dirt.
The shooter was using a Sig pistol loaded with a 147gr 9mm FMJ subsonic, and fired into their leg from less than a foot away. Judging by entry/exit wounds only it looked like it sliced right through and aside from minimal blood loss their wasn’t much damage. The wound was immediately dressed by the 8-10 other competitors (myself included) who swarmed the shooter to provide emergency first aid. I had ripped my belt off in order to provide a strong compression in lieu of a tourniquet but luckily in about three to five minutes, bleeding was stopped with compression bandages and no tourniquet was needed. By the time the ambulance arrived 12-15 minutes later, things were under control and the shooter had called his wife to let her know what had happened and where to meet him.
It went from normal to crazy and back to normal very quickly.
I think what happened was that the shooter was going fast and forgot to decock his Sig before holstering, possibly with his finger in the way of the trigger, therefore discharging the gun as he jammed it into the holster. – At least that’s what it looked like from my angle standing behind him and to the left about 12 feet. It was not the perfect vantage point to see what his right hand was doing. – As soon as it occurred everyone knew what happened and the wheels started turning. It was nice to see that people pitched in, worked together and that people knew what to do. Turns out, if you’re going to shoot yourself in the leg then you might as well do it with a half a dozen combat lifesaver qualified people in the crowd.
Luckily it wasn’t a life threatening wound in the first place but had it hit an artery, vein, or his bone, then it could have been alot worse for him. I just wanted to post this in the Emergency First Aid section as a reminder to everyone how fast things can go wrong and urge everyone to seek out some basic emergency first aid training if you’ve never had it. You could save your life or that of someone else some day.
SS, There was a safety brief as there always is at this competition/range. There will be changes in the future but they haven’t been decided yet. If you’ve got any suggestions then I’d like to hear them but I know giving valid suggestions without more information than what I’ve offered may be difficult.
FMCDH, Yes he was on a knee behind low cover shooting at some steel poppers with his pistol. The shooter had to holster his pistol before getting his rifle up for more shooting while moving on the way to the next firing position. Everything was on the clock.
Glad he was not seriously hurt. BTW, most GSW distal extremity wounds require local pressure only to control bleeding. It is very rare to need a tourniquet for these wounds - especially in the US where hospitals are fairly common.
I havent shot much 3 gun, but reholstering on the clock is bad juju . At the matches I have shot or know of once the pistol comes on line if another gun is up next it is empty before it goes down, and then usually on a table or into a container.
Glad to bar the guy is OK, well as OK as one can be with a shiny new bullet hole. It’s also nice to hear that people stepped up and were able to help, but that is not unexpected. It’s not like 3 Gun or other matches are attended by sheep.
Without knowing details of the stage, I’d also suggest a review of the stage design. Don’t have a lot of experience with 3 Gun, but I’m also in the speed reholstering is a bad idea in general club.
First off I am glad the gentleman is safe and did not suffer any more serious injury than he did.
Forgive me for my possible naivete, but in the 3 gun matches I have participated in, why was he allowed to reholster a loaded weapon after completing his COF? This is a huge no-no at the club I shoot in (grounds for DQ). After a run, the weapon must be cleared, decocked/hammer down and shown to an RO before reholstering is allowed…did he just forget his safety brief or is this an area for improvement?
ShawnL-
I struggle with the belief that holstering a hot pistol during a COF is unsafe. Since almost all of us are CCW types this is surely a skill one must master.
We run a game called ACTS here in MI and we have reholstered on the clock for the better part of 6 years without incident. We strive to provide as real world scenarios as we can create with in the confines of the square range and I think when people often refer to the mindset that competition builds bad habits, the inability to reholster a hot pistol is certianly one I don’t think we should be propagating.
I tend to think, how hard is it to get people to keep their head screwed on straight under pressure of competition and if they can’t handle that, what are they gonna do in the mix of a real deadly force encounter. All this unloading and grounding weapons is tactically unsound.
First off, its a game. It doesnt need to be “tactically sound” , we shoot it for sport.
secondly can you give me any context in which I , a civilian CCW holder will need to reholster a hot gun when fractions of a second matter ? FAST back into that holster !
Most of my instruction has included items like “draw fast, shoot accurately, reholster reluctantly”
I think its just a bad idea in an environment where the only prerequisite for shooting that COF is the ability to show up with a gun.
It sounds like you had a good response time from EMS. A lot of ranges are in more rural areas. The last range that I spent time at with strangers, I always had a laminated card with the exact address and GPS coordinates. I am not sure if that would be something your RO’s might consider.
Again, I’m glad you were not injured, and no one was killed.
ShawnL-
We try to get the shooters to go as FAST as they safely can, so they only need to holster as fast a they can safely go, we often have stages that run a couple of minutes and a second or two to safely holster rarely makes any negilble difference in the overall score.
As for a time reholstering quickly is maybe and empahsize maybe, is when the self defense is over, wouldn’t to better to reholster a hot weapon than clear it? Don’t we holster hot weapons every morning.
We really try to avoid the game aspect and work on doing it correctly, e.g. use of cover, ammo management, transitioning when a weapon goes down. We just are not willing to force folks to build bad habits.
I see your point on showing up with a gun, we ride folks like a hawk and we have sent unsafe handlers home a bunch of times.
I think the stress innoculation of competition is a good thing for folks to experience.
I understand what you guys do is a speed game and you are correct that if you are running for pure speed the incidence for bad things to happen is increased, I just think these games build habits that can get folks killed or hurt as they will do what they have practiced.
Please take my comments with a HUGE grain of salt as my experience in the 3 Gun world is next to nothing. It’s a great thing that the club you shoot with has been putting on matches for years without incident. That is something definitely to be proud of, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a better way to skin a cat. It’s also a VERY good thing that you try to make things as realistic as possible and maybe help prepare people for the event that hopefully never comes rather than help them develop horrible habits cause they were fast and won a stage at a match.
With that said, I can’t think of a good reason to have to speed reholster. As a CCW person I am not holstering my gun until I am sure the scene is safe and there are no more threats about. At that time I’m going to do it so slow that I can count the hairs on my arms. Being amped up on adrenaline is the time I’m going to make a mistake and shoot myself. If the cops show up I’m dropping that baby to the ground so they don’t perceive me as a threat and kill me. I’m not gonna try to reholster quickly. Additionally, I can’t think of a reason to transition from a powerful weapons platform (carbine) to a weak platform (pistol) unless the carbine is down. That means that a transition back to the carbine under duress is not needed. Why not set up stages with the handgun section at the end simulating a malfunction or out of ammo deal and then the need to reholster under the clock is eliminated.
I don’t mean to sound like a nitpick or an ass, but since you want to look at ways to minimize the potential for this happening again you should look at everything.
Taz we do set up stages the way you suggest, but not always.
I also agree speed reholstering is bad as a tactic. We often setup a carbine malf where, you transition, control the carbine, engage targets, move to cover, reholster(hot) and fix the carbine and drive on.
It’s been said many times you will default to your level of training not rise to the occasion, so what are you training yourself to do at the end of an engagement, clear the gun, show it empty and reholster.
I know a lot of folks disagree with my stance, I just like to hear what others are thinking from time to time. I think the biggest disconnect for most is that our game is not about speed, or at least as much as we can try to not make it about speed, we aren’t always succesful.
What we’d like to think it’s about is good tactics and keeping ones head in the fight, so my view is that if you can’t seem to safely stuff that blaster in it’s holster and drive on you are doing yourself a disservice, if that is too much pressure how will you handle a deadly force encounter.
No issue on your comments, civil discourse is always welcome.
Big difference between ‘hot’ and on the clock. I still struggle to see a viable reason to holster a hot gun in the middle of a timed stage. In my opinion what you are doing is putting two stages together. If someone getting shot in the leg doesn’t disuade your club from changing its protocols, I don’t see how our input will. I’d never participate in a stage with that set-up, and I hate the dry and clear step in three gun matches.
Just to be clear, this was NOT my club that had the ND.
We’ve been good for a long time doing what we do.
We have run a match once a month since 9/2005 and we have had no issues with hot reholstering on the clock.
We have had a couple ND’s when folks clear at the end of the stage, but no injuries.
It’s all about the shooter keeping their head in the game regardless what’s going on. Competition should be stress innoculation, but most dumb it down to be a mindless game, stand here, shoot this, put that gun down, pick up that one, move to that box, shoot these targets, all just for speed. I’d like to think I spend my time more constructively on the range and in competition.
Interestingly enough, we’ve seen another group move there comps to be closer to ours…
I am a fan of BIG BOY rules on the range and prefer to be HOT all the time but I know that is not the case in the game world. NEVER is a gun put back in a holster without showing clear at least at the comps I have been to. Way too much to risk as we have just seen.
BIG difference betwen real world and games. There are tons of great games shooters out there but very few would I want to go down a dark hallway with! I stopped shooting IDPA and USPSA for a while because I was getting all assed up by all the rules of what you could do and how and when you could handle your weapons. The range I operate in daily is not square or has a 180 firing line so it was hard for me to deal with. I got tired of all the range nazis.
Im back at it now and realize that there is a switch that needs to be turned off if you operate under big boy rules and want to play gun games.
I hear what your saying, but how many people will be able to flip the switch and do whats right at the right time. Just doesn’t make sense to train folks to opposite of what they should do.
To be clear, the club is safe but accidents do happen. To my knowledge this is the first injury to ever happen here and it’s been going on a while. Nevertheless, a review of rules and stages will hopefully prevent this from happening in the future but personally I have mixed feelings about never holstering on the clock again.
I’ve got to think there’s real life situations in which you’d want to go from rifle to pistol and back to rifle rather quickly, and therefore there’s got to be ways to 1) practice it and 2) set a CoF to test it.